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LylibelluleIn and Out of Tokyo
Posted by meronpan on March 5, 2009
Still trying to decide who to review next (probably Teana…? mmm hiyori?) so in the meantime, more pics from my trip. Before we get to that though, just a little housekeeping…
I’m planning on messing with the layout and am curious what sort of horizontal real estate I should work with…
Alrighty, on with the show!
50+ pics… don’t want to have to do 10 more posts for my trip, so doing big chunks ^^; Probably just one more after this…
Just a couple more akiba pics :P Miku bike above was awesome ^^
Here’s animate, where I got the wallscrolls, nanoha/fate stay/night charms and other goodies:
I always seem to take this next shot ^^;
If you’re ever looking for onoden… thar she blows!
Sunday in Akiba just wasn’t the same without the chuuoudoori closed for pedestrian traffic ;_; At least the maids were still out.
I wish there was a district in my city where huge CHAOS;HEAD ads were being displayed :P
Always crowded in the afternoons.
Summore shots of the itasha at wonhobby 9.
More akiba crowds.
I think there was some sort of Valentine’s Day promotion where somehow you would get a ticket then play jyan-ken-pon against miku for a prize.
Alas, I didn’t get a chance to play ^^;
Alrighty, on to harajuku!
You familiar with this free hugs thing? I’m guessing this is related to the wiki article I just linked.
Make sure to stop by on Sunday ‘cuz I think (?) that’s the only time everyone’s just hanging out like this ~
This gal was getting her picture taken by another harajuku girl…
Sundays can be quite crowded ^^;
… excellent. ^^;
You is likes chicken mayo crepe?
If you need gothic lolita outfits, I’m sure you’ll find something in harajuku…
I was a big shopper I prolly woulda been in heaven.
Stopped at a yakiniku for dinner, got a nice view of the chaos. Alas, the window was great for the view but not so much for photography.
Was trying to get a decent photo off of this crazy audi building, spotted while walking over to shibuya. Maxed out my camera’s iso, and stepped to f/2.7 but still had to use a 1/13s shutter speed orz Next time I hope I have my tripod and a better camera ^^;
…on to Yokohama! Takes about 30 min or so by local train and only costs like… 600-700 yen. Not sure if it’s really worth a day trip (unless you have specific plans) but I was gonna meet some coworkers for dinner so I decided to wander around the city.
I did this read this post Danny did recently, but all I could remember that it was near the water… so to the water I walked! Took a while, but eventually I found a park on the water.
Totally randomly, the above pic is where I spotted punynari doing his nanoha review! Alas, I was shy and didn’t introduce myself, but a quick search for “nanoha yokohama” a couple days later revealed the identity of this random person doing a figure review. If I wasn’t so shy I probably woulda ran up and screamed, “omg, I flew across the world, decided to spend 1 day in yokohama, and here I find a fellow collector doing an outdoor figure review!!” ^^;;
A huge bridge was visible from where we were, alas my camera doesn’t exactly have fancy telephoto capabilities ^^;
Not really looking at much in this picture but I kind of like it for some reason ^^;;
Neat looking… hotel?
Too bad all the ugly looking cones were out -_-
Figure photography has made me a nut. I’ll take a picture of anything.
A fancy looking (well, just for the fact that it was on the water)… restaurant was it?
Saw the ferris wheel and remembered Danny’s article… maybe an onsen was near!
…had no idea where I was and pressed on.
In Yokohama you only need half a car.
Decided to head towards Yokohama’s chinatown and hopped on the subway. These are probably the fanciest chairs in a subway station I’ve ever seen.
Arrived with little trouble. Too bad it was cloudy.
If I had felt confident that I could successfully ask them to just, “take me for a ride wherever” I might’ve done it ^^;
This is probably what akiba feels like to non-otaku… just a thousand stores all selling the same stuff… meh :P
So much tasty looking food, but unfortunately I wasn’t very hungry orz
Fancy looking... street sign?
Fancy looking... temple? Shrine?
石獅?
Walking back along the water through some park… they have this statue. “Little girl with red shoes on.” It was even marked on the map I got at the station. Famous… I guess?
Better look at the water front/park.
Bird.
Think danny posted on this a while back… something about it being some famous huge brick warehouse…? Seemed like there were some stores in it, but I was busy getting to my next destination.
…not here, but those building looked neat with those skyways…
…not here either but it was a very prominent building ^^;
Here! The shinyokohama ramen museum ^^; Another big orz, it was getting late and as previously mentioned, I was meeting coworkers for dinner… so I didn’t get to try any of the ramen restaurants ;_; The actual museum is really small (like 3 rooms worth ^^;;) but the basement is filled with different ramen restaurants, I believe each representing a different style of ramen from a particular region of Japan.
And that’s about it! Got lost getting to the office, but eventually found my coworkers and we hit up an izakaya. I love eating at izakaya.
Tiny bit more pics from Narita (had no idea there was anything to see there… thought it was just an airport town ^^;) and Tokyo, then it’s 100% back to the “usual” ^^;
以上！
theinfernoproject said
What a small world it is. Reading punynari’s blog answered my suspicion that you’re Japanese. Really nice pics, makes me wanna go to Japan again. I think I developed trigger finger after my trip to Japan, I took pics of anything and everything.
meronpan said
close, i’m half :P
my first trip with my family i was taking a pretty good amount of pics… then in nikko i tripped on some steps and landed on my camera hand orz the lens wouldn’t retract/extend after that and it would just error out when i powered it on. luckily it was just a point and shoot, but still sucked.
this was my first trip where i was able to continuously take pics. ended up with over 900 ^^;;
theinfernoproject said
900…I ended up with 4000 on my 12 day trip to Japan ^^; I kinda slipped and fell on a slope in Nara because it was raining with a couple deers chasing me, it was hilarious. I too landed on my camera…well…kinda, but luckily it ended up only with a couple scratches on the cover…Thank god the Sony T series don’t have extended lens’.
Oh, I forgot to mention that I’ll be looking forward to Teana Lanster review. I’m sorta catching up with my anime (and lazing off on blogging) recently. Looking to buy that Alter Teana.
meronpan said
4000?! lol very nice. now i have a new standard to go by ^^; glad your camera survived your fall ^^;
givien teana’s outfit’s coloring… think i’ll be goin back to the black background again ^^;; hopefully have time to crank that out soon.
kesenaitsumi said
^.^ nice view. Wish have time to go around there and take some snap too.
meronpan said
i’m one of those people who can just sit and watch waves roll in for hours, so i especially enjoyed the views ^^
Ayu said
Waaaah, I heard there’s a big Black Rock Shooter figure poster in Akiba…
China towns everywhere look the same xDD
meronpan said
ah, that advertisement that was on mikatan’s blog? alas, it wasn’t up when i was there. though i was lucky to get a first hand view of brs ^^
i suppose if china towns looked different… would they still be china towns? :P
theinfernoproject said
LOL, I was in Beijing last fall and they had those sign (almost) everywhere to mark off different locations/districts/attractions.
Coco the Bean said
Who would have thought you would end up seeing another blogger doing a review? xD Small world indeed.
meronpan said
heheh totally. never woulda expected it, yet as I walked up and noticed a guy fiddling around with a bag and a camera, it was the first that popped in my mind…, “wait, no way… zomg a figure review!” ^^;
Q said
I still haven’t been to Chinatown despite having been to Yokohama twice (2 half-days, 2 different trips). Maybe it’s mainly because I am a Chinese in the first place lol…
There’s also the Hakkejima aquarium which you need to take another train to get there – I actually got my Kawaii the dolphin there ^^ (though the merchandise are actually the same as the ones in the aquarium located in Sunshine City in Ikebukuro…)
Next time when you have time in Yokohama try Manyo club (mentioned by Danny before, though my sister found out first from KATTUN’s show once) – not only it has great onsen, the food and other relaxing facilities are great (though it can be slightly pricey)! Oh yea visiting there at night and you’ll see the Ferris Wheel (was the biggest when it was built at that time) at close sight and all lit up!
Gargh you made me wanting to go back to Tokyo earlier than I thought! XD
meronpan said
mmm sounds like there was a lot i missed out on… had a feeling i wouldn’t get around to it in just half a day ^^; haven’t been to an aquarium in years… woulda been nice
totally forgot the name of the manyo club and had no idea where it was when i was there ^^;; too bad i missed it and the night time scenery…
tokyo~ like the siren’s call ^^
JefLebowski said
Oh man, you are trying to make me envious, aren’t you?
Th Ramen-museum is one of he holiest places on earth…on my scale.
BUT i found an opportunity to visit japan…in some years.
JETprogram, after college…5 years NIPPON \o/
meronpan said
i wish i had made it into the jet program… alas, interviews are not my forte and i think i was too interested in japan for their tastes ^^; hope you make it when you apply!
JefLebowski said
I want to make… I mean, will there be a better possibility? no
Saku said
I saw a big poster of Chaos: Head Noah. Me Wants. <3 Rimi
meronpan said
aoi for me, but rimi isn’t far behind ^^
Rin said
Just amazing!!!!!!
I want to go to Yokohama but I’m afraid I might get lost on the way there. I need a full map to figure out how to get from point A to B and back again…
It’s cool to meet another blogger in a foreign country…I meet Adun from Moe Moe Rabu and Ron~ from Ota Desho in Japan!!!!
Great time!!!!!!
I wish I can do what you did.
Mind giving me full directions too all the places you went in this post. I would love to go out and just walk around and take pictures…
meronpan said
hmmm i’ll have to try and scan the map I picked up at the station… the route I took was pretty simple once I finally got on it, but the most important part, getting started from the station, is the part I had trouble with ^^; Basically after a lotta walking through some boring areas I got to this walking path that is represented by a dotted red line on maps that you’ll see around the city.
xJAYMANx said
@M-pan: Wow, another amazing set of photos! So many colors and layers and textures, and I can tell, it still probably fails to capture the full motion and energy of the entire experience! I’m totally jealous, lol. ^_^;
meronpan said
i did take some short movies of the crowds but those turned out pretty meh. i also may have deleted them on accident freeing up some space for my recent reviews ^^;;
i don’t get out as much as i’d like, so it was definitely a great experience ^^
gordon said
thanks for another great photo walk. really wish i’m there. now time to get my teleporter working.
meronpan said
let me know when the teleporter’s up, i have some plans of my own :P
phossil said
Wow, surely it was very crowded in the streets. So many people. I think sidewalks are huge
meronpan said
luckily in some places, there wasn’t any vehicle traffic (like the insanely crowded area in harajuku).
Blowfish said
You are travelling across the world and what do i see in your pictures BMW Itashas and AUDI Buildings.Lesson learned: You cant escape German Car manufacturers!
Your pictures are pretty mouthwatering.
That Outdoorshoot coincidence is really funny^^
You should have taken that Miku Bike with you:D
I didnt know that they have a Ramen Restaurant over there.I have to definately check it out when i get there since its one of my favorite foods
meronpan said
hahah well, bmw and audi certainly have made a name for themselves :P
i felt kinda awkward taking the miku bike pic actually… ‘cuz right as I was taking it, the owner walked up and rode away ^^;;;
for ramen lovers, a great thing about japan is that you can find ramen everywhere ^_^